Students are so lucky nowadays - we have a bounty of resources going back years and years that enables us to get to grips with exactly what to expect in our exams.

When I was at school I remember feeling out of my depth - what am I supposed to do to revise? What will the exam be like?

Would you believe it - past papers were not available online! You had to contact the exam boards and ask them to send you them (I’m feeling about 100 years old now haha!). Regular students like myself simply didn’t do this. I remember watching the top students, the amazing ones who were applying to medical school, opening their envelopes from the exam boards and thinking ‘wow, they know what they are doing!’.

Now we are privileged to have the information that we do, available to all online.

Here are the top free resources that you need to be using - these aren’t optional anymore - use them to get the top grades you deserve.

1. Specification

This is often forgotten about but I love this resource. The specification is a comprehensive list of all the key topics you are going to get assessed on. This resource is perfect to act as a tick list to see if you have covered all the topics you need to know and it is also brilliant to guide your flash card creation. Using this alongside your revision guide you will quickly see what you actually need to know and what you don’t.

2. Past Papers

You need to use these!

You can never do too many past papers.

If you are worried you haven’t learnt enough to do a full paper yet, you are not off the hook! Complete exam questions by topic on these topics - you absolutely need to do this - you will never convince me otherwise!

If you are getting disappointing test results - I recommend you do more exam questions. The number one technique to boost your grade.

3. Mark Schemes

You would be amazed how many students complete past papers but then forget to mark them!

We are lucky that all the mark schemes are available online so we need to make sure we use them.

After every past paper you complete I recommend that you mark them using the mark scheme and then analyse any questions that you didn’t get full marks.

Are there any other free resources that you enjoy and would recommend?

I would love to hear all about them!